5 ms·

I didn't post a flamewar comment. I responded to a sexist flamewar comment. I tried to bring objectivity to the conversation. If someone wrote, "as a man, an a

by disown 6y ago

I didn't post a flamewar comment. I responded to a sexist flamewar comment. I tried to bring objectivity to the conversation. If someone wrote, "as a man, an awful lot of women are list of stereotypical anti-women comments", I would have responded in kind. I would have called him out for being a sexist and point out that men also misbehave. In what world is saying men and women are equal human beings who can equally be horrific be a flamewar comment. > and it wrecks what it is for. This doesn't? Is this what hacker news is for? "If you are a woman, an awful lot of men treat you like you are nothing but a pussy to fuck and their entire interaction boils down to deciding if they would like to fuck you in specific or not and whether they want to fuck you or not, it's all downside for the woman. If they want to fuck you, they will be using you and mistreating you. If they don't want to fuck you, you will not be treated like a human being. You will be ignored, at best, or treated with open hostility. I've spent a lot of years trying to "just be a human being" on the internet and, just like off the internet, the vast majority of men I run into find out I am a woman, wonder to themselves if they would like to sleep with me and regardless of the answer, the outcome is I will never, ever, ever, ever be treated like a human being. I will be treated only like a walking, talking sex object who utterly doesn't matter and has nothing whatsoever of value to add other than maybe sex and doesn't deserve any respect, any intellectual outlets, any friends, any money, etc. unless I am sleeping with some man who has an adequate income. No, I am not exaggerating." So if I wrote a highly exaggerated politically biased statement starting with "a lot blacks do X", "a lot of chinese do Y", "a lot of muslims are Z", etc and claim it isn't an exaggeration, that would be okay? I'm more than willing to admit my mistakes, but I didn't here and if you want to stop flamewars, go speak to the OP.

dang 6y ago
I'm pretty sure that if you re-read your comment after some time has gone by, you'll see that it wasn't just "bringing objectivity to the conversation". I believe you that you intended it that way, but it came across as snarky and a personal attack. Intent doesn't communicate itself on the internet—quite the opposite—so the burden is on the commenter to disambiguate (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=disambiguate%20burden%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...). It's easy to understand how DoreenMichele's post could have triggered a defensive/offensive response. I get activated by comments that way all the time. For thoughtful discussion, we need the skill of processing that activation energy in ourselves, rather than allowing it to turn directly into words. Lashing out does provide momentary relief (which is why we do it of course), but it's not a real solution and it damages the container (the community environment) in the process. The difference with DoreenMichele's comment is that she was speaking about her personal experience. It's true that the comment was provocative. But it wasn't really an abstract generalization. If you had responded by speaking about your personal experience on the same level, that would be a conversation—perhaps a difficult one—but not a flamewar. Of course, where to draw these lines is matter of interpretation and different people would draw them differently. But watch out for the bias where we always see our own comments as less harsh than they actually land with others. As I said in a different context recently, comments in the rear-view mirror are much larger than they appear! The other issue of course is that moderation responses are conditioned by an account's past behavior on the site. You've unfortunately been making a habit of posting in the flamewar style and/or including harsh swipes in your HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24666716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24666716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24665961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24665961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24665856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24665856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24654852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24654852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24618909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24618909 ...and we already asked you to stop doing this. That's why my reply to you used stronger language this time. You're 100% welcome here. We just need you to take the site guidelines more to heart and practice them going forward: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. That isn't easy, but we all need to work on it in order for HN to be the community we want. That is in all of our interests.
- disown 6y ago
  > I'm pretty sure that if you re-read your comment after some time has gone by, you'll see that it wasn't just "bringing objectivity to the conversation". Perhaps objectivity may not be the most precise word. Maybe "another point of view". Or better yet, the middle ground. I was trying to counter her extremism the best I could. > It's easy to understand how DoreenMichele's post could have triggered a defensive/offensive response. Because it was flamebait. It was intentionally divisive and toxic extremism. It's no different than what racists, chauvanists and all kinds of extremists do. By now, it's obvious to most people who aren't ideologically blind. Replace "men" with "women" in her comment and you'd spot the hateful sexism right away. I'm sure of it. > The difference with DoreenMichele's comment is that she was speaking about her personal experience. No. It's not. There was no personal anecdote, no mention of personal event. Just generalizations like "if you are a woman ... " and some bizarre projection about "what men think". That's the point. It's an obvious exaggeration. The easy tell is that she ended her diatribe with a defensive "No, I am not exaggerating.". Even if her experience were real, her sexist comment is clearly not what HN is about. If you are truly sincere, would you allow people who had negative experiences with "jews", "chinese", "blacks", "gays" or "women" to freely express their views here? Can someone take their personal negative experience and then extrapolate that to most jews, most chinese, most blacks, most gays or most women? Of course not. It would be insane to paint millions or billions of people with the same brush. > You've unfortunately been making a habit of posting in the flamewar style and/or including harsh swipes in your HN comments: Yes, I made a mistake here or there, but then again, it was mostly in response to flamebait from an obvious bigot and trolling throwaways. I've never went out of my way to attack a certain gender, race, religion, etc like DoreenMichele. > ...and we already asked you to stop doing this. That's why my reply to you used stronger language this time. And it's why my response to DoreenMichele was far tamer than my response to the throwaway. And it may be personal bias, but the more I read her comment and mine, the more it feels like hers is extremely biased and hateful while mine is relatively benign. > That is in all of our interests. Fair moderation. That's all I ask for. I know it's a tough job but honestly, if I felt that the commenter would have been admonished, I wouldn't have wasted my time responding to her in the first place. Because her comment is like all hate speech - they all follow the same pattern and hit the same beats. It's boring. But if left unchecked it'll fester and grow. Still shocked she hasn't been reprimanded and her hateful comment hasn't been flagged. But I'll try do better and I'm sure you will try to do better and hopefully DoreenMichele comes to terms with her hate and has a better life both on and off the internet.

by disown 6y ago

dang 6y ago

I'm pretty sure that if you re-read your comment after some time has gone by, you'll see that it wasn't just "bringing objectivity to the conversation". I believe you that you intended it that way, but it came across as snarky and a personal attack. Intent doesn't communicate itself on the internet—quite the opposite—so the burden is on the commenter to disambiguate (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=disambiguate%20burden%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...). It's easy to understand how DoreenMichele's post could have triggered a defensive/offensive response. I get activated by comments that way all the time. For thoughtful discussion, we need the skill of processing that activation energy in ourselves, rather than allowing it to turn directly into words. Lashing out does provide momentary relief (which is why we do it of course), but it's not a real solution and it damages the container (the community environment) in the process. The difference with DoreenMichele's comment is that she was speaking about her personal experience. It's true that the comment was provocative. But it wasn't really an abstract generalization. If you had responded by speaking about your personal experience on the same level, that would be a conversation—perhaps a difficult one—but not a flamewar. Of course, where to draw these lines is matter of interpretation and different people would draw them differently. But watch out for the bias where we always see our own comments as less harsh than they actually land with others. As I said in a different context recently, comments in the rear-view mirror are much larger than they appear! The other issue of course is that moderation responses are conditioned by an account's past behavior on the site. You've unfortunately been making a habit of posting in the flamewar style and/or including harsh swipes in your HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24666716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24666716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24665961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24665961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24665856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24665856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24654852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24654852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24618909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24618909 ...and we already asked you to stop doing this. That's why my reply to you used stronger language this time. You're 100% welcome here. We just need you to take the site guidelines more to heart and practice them going forward: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. That isn't easy, but we all need to work on it in order for HN to be the community we want. That is in all of our interests.

disown 6y ago
> I'm pretty sure that if you re-read your comment after some time has gone by, you'll see that it wasn't just "bringing objectivity to the conversation". Perhaps objectivity may not be the most precise word. Maybe "another point of view". Or better yet, the middle ground. I was trying to counter her extremism the best I could. > It's easy to understand how DoreenMichele's post could have triggered a defensive/offensive response. Because it was flamebait. It was intentionally divisive and toxic extremism. It's no different than what racists, chauvanists and all kinds of extremists do. By now, it's obvious to most people who aren't ideologically blind. Replace "men" with "women" in her comment and you'd spot the hateful sexism right away. I'm sure of it. > The difference with DoreenMichele's comment is that she was speaking about her personal experience. No. It's not. There was no personal anecdote, no mention of personal event. Just generalizations like "if you are a woman ... " and some bizarre projection about "what men think". That's the point. It's an obvious exaggeration. The easy tell is that she ended her diatribe with a defensive "No, I am not exaggerating.". Even if her experience were real, her sexist comment is clearly not what HN is about. If you are truly sincere, would you allow people who had negative experiences with "jews", "chinese", "blacks", "gays" or "women" to freely express their views here? Can someone take their personal negative experience and then extrapolate that to most jews, most chinese, most blacks, most gays or most women? Of course not. It would be insane to paint millions or billions of people with the same brush. > You've unfortunately been making a habit of posting in the flamewar style and/or including harsh swipes in your HN comments: Yes, I made a mistake here or there, but then again, it was mostly in response to flamebait from an obvious bigot and trolling throwaways. I've never went out of my way to attack a certain gender, race, religion, etc like DoreenMichele. > ...and we already asked you to stop doing this. That's why my reply to you used stronger language this time. And it's why my response to DoreenMichele was far tamer than my response to the throwaway. And it may be personal bias, but the more I read her comment and mine, the more it feels like hers is extremely biased and hateful while mine is relatively benign. > That is in all of our interests. Fair moderation. That's all I ask for. I know it's a tough job but honestly, if I felt that the commenter would have been admonished, I wouldn't have wasted my time responding to her in the first place. Because her comment is like all hate speech - they all follow the same pattern and hit the same beats. It's boring. But if left unchecked it'll fester and grow. Still shocked she hasn't been reprimanded and her hateful comment hasn't been flagged. But I'll try do better and I'm sure you will try to do better and hopefully DoreenMichele comes to terms with her hate and has a better life both on and off the internet.